Day 227: Stratified

page 1 (of 3), from The Writings of Robert Smithson (click to enlarge)

"He used the term matter for the plane of consistency of Body without Organs, in other words, the unformed, unorganized, nonstratified, or destratified body and all of its flows: subatomic and submolecular particles, pure intensities, prevital and prephysical free singularities. He used the term content for formed matters, which would now have to be considered from two points of view: substance insofar as these matters are "chosen," and form, insofar as they are chosen in a certain order (substance and form of content). He used the term expression for functional structures, which would also have to be considered from two points of view: the organization of their own specific form, and substances insofar as they form compounds (form and content of expression). A stratum always has a dimension of the expressible or of expression serving as the basis for a relative invariance; for example nucleic sequences are inseparable from a relatively invariant expression by means of which they determine the compounds, organs, and functions of the organism...We are never signifier or signfied. We are stratified." -from "10,000 B.C. The Geology of Morals", A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari